UT Libraries has adorned its special collections department with two new works.
First-edition prints of Phillis Wheatley’s “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,” and the autobiography “Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kia, or Black Hawk,” are now available.
Christopher Caldwell, humanities services librarian, works closely with Special Collections to assist in library research and acquisitions.
“Special Collections is always acquiring rare materials to support our existing collection areas and faculty research interests,” Caldwell said. “A library collection is a living thing, always growing. These particular acquisitions have a wider appeal among researchers and undeniable cultural significance.”
Sold into slavery at 7 to an affluent Boston couple, Phillis Wheatley began studying English, Latin, and the Bible at an early age and astounded skeptics with her classical allusions and reverent elegies to men such as George Washington and King George III.
Before the death of Susanna Wheatley and her eventual release from slavery, Wheatley became the first African-American and second woman to publish a book in the colonies.
UT’s copy of “Poems” was purchased from a private collector and is missing the original frontispiece but bears the poet’s authenticated signature opposite the dedication page. However, Caldwell says that Special Collections does hold another first-edition copy of the work, with frontispiece intact.
Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kia, or Black Hawk (1767-1838), a warrior and member of the Sauk tribal nation, was imprisoned by the United States following the Black Hawk War of 1832. During his incarceration, Black Hawk worked with translator Antoine LeClaire and editor J.B. Patterson to chronicle the history of interactions between the Sauk nation and the US government, beginning with the land-appropriating treaty of 1804, which Black Hawk and his followers considered to be invalid. Due to the rising popularity of the “noble savage,” the resulting work, the first Native American autobiography to be printed in the United States, became an instant bestseller, going through five printings in the first year.
Katherine Chiles, assistant professor of English and Africana Studies, specializes in early African American and Native American literature. With the help of Christopher Caldwell and Dawn Coleman, associate professor of English, Chiles discovered UT’s first-edition copy of Black Hawk’s work in an antiquarian shop, and quickly brought it to the library’s attention.
“The library has several editions of this important book,” Chiles said, “but we did not yet own the very first-edition.”
“I believe (the study of African American and Native American literature) is of vital importance because it gives us crucial insight into both the promises and problems of this fraught and fascinating period,” Chiles said. “Access to first-edition prints such as these will allow students to learn a great deal about what Native American and African American writers could do with the written word (as well as) what we call ‘the history of the book’– all of the particular qualities of any printed text.”
